FBA to present Gilman Award to Mullkoff
Mayor Bing to be
keynote speaker

By Admin

Detroit Legal News

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The Federal Bar Association Eastern District of Michigan Chapter will hold its annual Leonard R. Gilman Award Luncheon on Thursday, April 22 at 11:30 a.m. at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit.

The Gilman Award, honoring an outstanding practitioner in criminal law, will be conferred upon Douglas R. Mullkoff, He has been repeatedly honored as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in white collar crime in Southeastern Michigan, named "Super Lawyer" in the category of criminal defense by his peers and given the highest available AV rating by the national Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. He has appeared in federal appeal actions before the 6th Circuit over 80 times and argued cases before the Michigan Court of Appeals on more than 150 occasions. In 2003 and 2004 in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., Mullkoff brought a habeas corpus action that resulted in the repatriation to Saudi Arabia of a Guantanamo detainee.

Mullkoff was elected president of the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan and served in that capacity from 1998 through 2000. In 2003, the Governor appointed him to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and he served in that capacity through 2006.

The luncheon keynote speaker will be Dave Bing, Mayor of the City of Detroit. In 1966, Bing joined the NBA as a second overall first-round pick of the Detroit Pistons, and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year. He averaged 20.3 points and six assists per game in his 12 NBA seasons. Bing was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1996, he was named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.

In 1980, Bing opened Bing Steel with four employees in a rented warehouse from $250,000 in loans and $80,000 of his own money. Losing all his money in six months, the company shied away from manufacturing to focus on being a middleman. With General Motors as their first major client, the company turned a profit in its second year on revenues of $4.2 million. By 1984, Bing was awarded by President Ronald Reagan the National Minority Small Business Person Of The Year. By 1985, Bing Steel had expanded to two plants with 63 employees posting revenues of $40 million. Bing Steel would transform itself to the Bing Group, a conglomerate with headquarters located in Detroit's North End. The company, among other things, supplies metal stampings to the automobile industry.

On October 16, 2008, Bing announced that he would be a candidate for the mayor of Detroit in the February 2009 primary election. He finished first in a 15 candidate non-partisan primary on February 24, 2009. On May 5, 2009, the top two vote getters faced off and he defeated interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. Bing was re-elected to a full term on November 3, 2009.

For more information on this event, please contact FBA Program Chair Michael K. Lee at mlee@leeandcorrell.com or by calling him at 248-350-5900.